Claire at 5 months

We have recently been spending time with a family that has a newborn and I am so amazed by how much Claire has changed in the past 5 months.

The girl loves to move and she is working hard on army crawling to get around and is SO close to rolling from her back to her front.  When she does playtime on the floor she is never in the same place for more than a few minutes.  She is also getting close to sitting on her own and she loves being in the exersaucer watching the big kids play.

She has continued to do a great job self-soothing when going down for naps/sleep.  She is down to 3 naps a day, usually a short one in the am, a longer afternoon and a cat nap in the evening.  She is usually ready to go down for the night around 8ish.  We are still doing a 10:30pm dream feed and she is still waking up between 1:30-3:30am.  Unfortunately, having Pays go in to help her go back to sleep just seems to make her mad.  So, now we will let her cry for 15-20 minutes and then I go in and feed her if she just can't get back to sleep.  We have had a few nights where she has slept from 11p-5a but they are infrequent.

She seems to get some comfort from a paci when going to sleep and really has liked having the paci that is attached to a small plush animal.  When she sees me getting ready to give it to her she will reach out her chubby little hands and pull it toward her.  She doesn't seem to mind when it falls out which is awesome.

She is doing great feeding and takes a bottle when I am at work without a problem.  We have tried rice cereal a few times but she is not quite ready yet.

She loves to travel around in the Bjorn and she is a trooper falling asleep and entertaining herself in the car seat on days that we have to take the kids to and from school.  She truly knows who her family is and she lights up when she sees us.  Henry and Samantha have figured out how to make her smile and laugh and these are sounds that just warm our heart.  That being said, the girl looooves her Poppy and he is rewarded with a huge grin when he merely looks at her and says, "Heeeeeyyyy!"